Tobo woke me.
“How can you sleep, Sleepy?”
“I guess I must be
tired. What do you want?”
“The Protector has finally
started to grumble about the Radisha. Dad wants you to come keep
track yourself. So you don’t have to record anything
third-hand.”
At the moment, my name felt entirely appropriate. I just wanted
to lie down on my pallet and dream about finding another kind of
life.
Trouble was, I had been doing this since I was fourteen. I did
not know anything else. Unless Master Santaraksita was willing to
let bygones by bygones and take me back at the library. Right after
we buried Soulcatcher in a fifty-foot-deep hole we filled in with
boiling lead.
I dragged a stool in between Sahra and One-Eye, leaned forward
with my elbows on the table and stared into the mist where Murgen
appeared to report when it suited him. One-Eye was fussing at
Murgen even though Murgen was away. I said, “Anybody would
think you were worried about Goblin, the way you’re carrying
on.”
“Of course I’m worried about Goblin, Little Girl.
The runt borrowed my transeidetic locuter before he went up there
this morning. Not to mention he still owes me several thousands
pais for . . . well, he owes me a bunch of
money.”
My recollection had it the other way around. One-Eye always owed
everyone, even when he was doing well. And several thousand pais is
not exactly a fortune, a pai being a tiny seed of such uniform
weight that it is used as a measure for gems and precious metals.
It takes almost two thousand of them to equal a northern ounce.
Since One-Eye had not specified gold or silver, the standard
assumption would be that he had meant coin-grade copper. In other
words, not very much.
In other words still, he was worried about his best friend but
he could not say so because he had a century-long history of
reviling the man in public.
If there was any such magical instrument as a transeidetic
locuter, One-Eye invented it an hour before he loaned it to
Goblin.
He muttered, “That ugly little turd gets himself killed,
I’m gonna strangle him. He can’t leave me holding the
bag on—” He realized he was thinking out loud.
Sahra and I both made mental notes to investigate the bag
metaphor. It sounded like there were business plans afoot. Secret
plans. Surprise, surprise.
Murgen materialized practically nose to nose with me. He
murmured, “Soulcatcher is out of patience. A flock of crows
just brought the news from Semchi. She’s in a complete black
mood. She says she’s going into the Radisha’s Anger
Chamber after her if she doesn’t come out in the next two
minutes.”
“How’s Goblin?” One-Eye barked.
“Hiding,” Murgen replied. “Waiting for
sunrise.” He was not going to try leaving during the night,
the way we had planned originally. Soulcatcher had loosed her
shadows, just to punish Taglios for irritating her. We had a few
traps out, randomly distributed through likely neighborhoods, but I
did not expect to catch anything. I figured our luck along those
lines was about used up.
Goblin was armed with a shadow-repellent amulet left over from
the Shadowmaster wars but did not know if it was any good anymore.
Being bright and full of forethought, it had not occurred to any of
us to test it on real shadows while we had some in stock.
You cannot think of everything.
But you should make the effort.
One of the Royal Guards actually tried to stop the Protector
when her patience failed and she went to dig the Radisha out of her
hideaway. He went down without a sound, stricken by a casual touch.
He would recover eventually. The Protector was not feeling
particularly vindictive. For the moment.
She crashed through the door of the Anger Chamber. And howled in
frustration before the pieces finished falling. “Where is
she?” The power of her rage wilted the onlookers.
A subassistant chamberlain, bowing almost double, continuing to
bob and get lower, whined, “She was in there, O Great
One!”
Someone else insisted, “We never saw her leave. She has to
be in there.”
From somewhere, echoing, almost as if coming from some distance
in time as well as place, there was the sound of brief
laughter.
Soulcatcher turned slowly, her stare a cruel spear. “Come
closer. Tell me again.” Her voice was compelling, chilling,
terrible. She stared into one pair of eyes after another, making
full use of the fear so many had that she could read the deepest
secrets in their minds.
None of the Radisha’s people changed their stories.
“Out of here. Out of this whole apartment. Something
happened here. I want no distractions. I want nothing
disturbed.” She turned again, slowly, extending a
sorceress’s senses to feel the shape of the past. It was more
difficult than she anticipated. She had been loafing for too long,
falling out of practice and getting out of shape.
The remote laughter sounded again for an instant, seeming just a
touch closer.
“You!” Soulcatcher snapped at a fat woman, one of
the housekeepers. “What are you doing?”
“Ma’am?” Narita was barely able to croak her
response. In a moment, she would lose control of her bladder.
“You just pushed something into your left sleeve.
Something off the altar.” A single white candle, almost
consumed, still burned in the tiny shrine to ancestors. “Come
here.” Soulcatcher extended her gloved right hand.
Narita could not resist. She stepped toward the dark woman, so
trim and evilly feminine in her leather. Idly, Narita hated her for
maintaining that sleek body.
“Give it to me.”
Reluctantly, Narita removed the Ghanghesha from her sleeve. She
began to babble about not wanting her friend to get into trouble,
making no sense at all, failing to realize that if she had not
tried to conceal the Ghanghesha, the Protector would have
overlooked it entirely.
Soulcatcher stared at the little clay figurine. “The
cleaning woman. It belongs to the cleaning woman. Where is
she?”
Far, mocking laughter.
“She’s a day employee, ma’am. She comes in
from outside.”
“Where does she live?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t think
anybody does. Nobody ever asked. It never mattered.”
One of the other staffers offered, “She was a good
worker.”
Soulcatcher continued to examine the Ghanghesha.
“Something’s odd here . . . Now it does matter. To me.
Find out.”
“How?”
“I don’t care! Be creative! But do it.”
Soulcatcher hurled the clay figurine to the floor. Shards flew in
every direction.
A wisp of a ghost of darkness curled up and stood like a rampant
cobra a foot high for an instant. Then it struck. At the
Protector.
The staffers squealed and began trampling one another, trying to
get away. They had not seen a shadow before but they knew what a
shadow could do.
The laughter was closer now, louder and lasting longer.
Soulcatcher offered a convincing squeal of surprise and fright,
like a young woman who has just stepped on a snake. Her apparel and
the handful of generalized protective spells that always surrounded
her saved her from becoming a victim of her own crudest weapon.
Even so, for a minute she was like a child swatting mosquitoes
as the shadow enthusiastically strove to terminate their
relationship. Failing to reclaim control of the shadow, Soulcatcher
destroyed it. The necessity told her that a pretty clever mind had
prepared it, probably hoping that she would be too angry to pay
close attention for just that instant
needed . . .
“Woman! Come back here!” The Protector extended a
hand in the direction Narita had fled. Somehow, a single strand of
the woman’s hair had become entwined through
Soulcatcher’s fingers. Those fingers shimmered
momentarily. The air became charged. The other staffers whimpered
and wished they had even had the nerve to try to run.
Narita reappeared slowly, taking short zombie steps.
“Here!” Soulcatcher said. She pointed at a spot on the
Anger Chamber floor. “The rest of you. Go away.
Quickly.” She did not have to add any encouragement.
“Fat woman. Tell me everything about the creature who always
carried the Ghanghesha.”
“I’ve told you everything I know,” Narita
whined.
“No. You have not. Start talking. She may have kidnapped
the Radisha.”
Soulcatcher regretted mentioning that the instant the words left
her helmet.
The laughter sounded like it was coming from just out in the
hallway, a diabolic snickering. The Protector’s head twitched
toward that direction. She sensed no threat. It could wait a
minute.
“Her name is Minh Subredil.” It took Narita only
another thirty seconds to relate everything she knew about Minh
Subredil, her daughter Shikhandini and her sister-in-law Sawa.
“Thank you,” Soulcatcher snarled.
“You’ve been most unhelpful. And for that, I shall
provide an appropriate reward.” She gripped the fat
woman’s throat in her right hand, squeezed.
As Narita went limp, that laughter sounded once more. There
might have been a word there, too. Ardath? Or perhaps Silath? Or
might it have been . . . ? No matter.
Soulcatcher would not listen to that, just to the mockery. She
hurled herself toward the sound but when she burst into the
hallway, there was nothing to see.
She started to call for Guards, for Greys, but recalled that she
had just slain the one person other than herself who knew for sure
that the Radisha had disappeared.
The Radisha had shut herself away from the world. That was all
anybody really needed to know. The Princess could live forever
right there in her Anger Chamber. She did not need to venture forth
ever again. She had her good friend the Protector to handle the
boring chores of managing her empire for her.
More laughter, apparently from nowhere and everywhere.
Soulcatcher stamped away. This was not over yet.
A white crow dropped out of the murk near the ceiling of the
hallway, flapped heavily, landed beside the fat woman. It held its
beak poised beneath her nostrils momentarily, as though checking
for breath. Then it flapped away suddenly, sharp ears having caught
the sound of a stealthy footfall.
A shivering Jaul Barundandi eased into the chamber. He knelt
beside the woman. He took her hand. He remained there, tears
streaking his cheeks, until he heard the Protector returning,
arguing with herself in a variety of voices.
Tobo woke me.
“How can you sleep, Sleepy?”
“I guess I must be
tired. What do you want?”
“The Protector has finally
started to grumble about the Radisha. Dad wants you to come keep
track yourself. So you don’t have to record anything
third-hand.”
At the moment, my name felt entirely appropriate. I just wanted
to lie down on my pallet and dream about finding another kind of
life.
Trouble was, I had been doing this since I was fourteen. I did
not know anything else. Unless Master Santaraksita was willing to
let bygones by bygones and take me back at the library. Right after
we buried Soulcatcher in a fifty-foot-deep hole we filled in with
boiling lead.
I dragged a stool in between Sahra and One-Eye, leaned forward
with my elbows on the table and stared into the mist where Murgen
appeared to report when it suited him. One-Eye was fussing at
Murgen even though Murgen was away. I said, “Anybody would
think you were worried about Goblin, the way you’re carrying
on.”
“Of course I’m worried about Goblin, Little Girl.
The runt borrowed my transeidetic locuter before he went up there
this morning. Not to mention he still owes me several thousands
pais for . . . well, he owes me a bunch of
money.”
My recollection had it the other way around. One-Eye always owed
everyone, even when he was doing well. And several thousand pais is
not exactly a fortune, a pai being a tiny seed of such uniform
weight that it is used as a measure for gems and precious metals.
It takes almost two thousand of them to equal a northern ounce.
Since One-Eye had not specified gold or silver, the standard
assumption would be that he had meant coin-grade copper. In other
words, not very much.
In other words still, he was worried about his best friend but
he could not say so because he had a century-long history of
reviling the man in public.
If there was any such magical instrument as a transeidetic
locuter, One-Eye invented it an hour before he loaned it to
Goblin.
He muttered, “That ugly little turd gets himself killed,
I’m gonna strangle him. He can’t leave me holding the
bag on—” He realized he was thinking out loud.
Sahra and I both made mental notes to investigate the bag
metaphor. It sounded like there were business plans afoot. Secret
plans. Surprise, surprise.
Murgen materialized practically nose to nose with me. He
murmured, “Soulcatcher is out of patience. A flock of crows
just brought the news from Semchi. She’s in a complete black
mood. She says she’s going into the Radisha’s Anger
Chamber after her if she doesn’t come out in the next two
minutes.”
“How’s Goblin?” One-Eye barked.
“Hiding,” Murgen replied. “Waiting for
sunrise.” He was not going to try leaving during the night,
the way we had planned originally. Soulcatcher had loosed her
shadows, just to punish Taglios for irritating her. We had a few
traps out, randomly distributed through likely neighborhoods, but I
did not expect to catch anything. I figured our luck along those
lines was about used up.
Goblin was armed with a shadow-repellent amulet left over from
the Shadowmaster wars but did not know if it was any good anymore.
Being bright and full of forethought, it had not occurred to any of
us to test it on real shadows while we had some in stock.
You cannot think of everything.
But you should make the effort.
One of the Royal Guards actually tried to stop the Protector
when her patience failed and she went to dig the Radisha out of her
hideaway. He went down without a sound, stricken by a casual touch.
He would recover eventually. The Protector was not feeling
particularly vindictive. For the moment.
She crashed through the door of the Anger Chamber. And howled in
frustration before the pieces finished falling. “Where is
she?” The power of her rage wilted the onlookers.
A subassistant chamberlain, bowing almost double, continuing to
bob and get lower, whined, “She was in there, O Great
One!”
Someone else insisted, “We never saw her leave. She has to
be in there.”
From somewhere, echoing, almost as if coming from some distance
in time as well as place, there was the sound of brief
laughter.
Soulcatcher turned slowly, her stare a cruel spear. “Come
closer. Tell me again.” Her voice was compelling, chilling,
terrible. She stared into one pair of eyes after another, making
full use of the fear so many had that she could read the deepest
secrets in their minds.
None of the Radisha’s people changed their stories.
“Out of here. Out of this whole apartment. Something
happened here. I want no distractions. I want nothing
disturbed.” She turned again, slowly, extending a
sorceress’s senses to feel the shape of the past. It was more
difficult than she anticipated. She had been loafing for too long,
falling out of practice and getting out of shape.
The remote laughter sounded again for an instant, seeming just a
touch closer.
“You!” Soulcatcher snapped at a fat woman, one of
the housekeepers. “What are you doing?”
“Ma’am?” Narita was barely able to croak her
response. In a moment, she would lose control of her bladder.
“You just pushed something into your left sleeve.
Something off the altar.” A single white candle, almost
consumed, still burned in the tiny shrine to ancestors. “Come
here.” Soulcatcher extended her gloved right hand.
Narita could not resist. She stepped toward the dark woman, so
trim and evilly feminine in her leather. Idly, Narita hated her for
maintaining that sleek body.
“Give it to me.”
Reluctantly, Narita removed the Ghanghesha from her sleeve. She
began to babble about not wanting her friend to get into trouble,
making no sense at all, failing to realize that if she had not
tried to conceal the Ghanghesha, the Protector would have
overlooked it entirely.
Soulcatcher stared at the little clay figurine. “The
cleaning woman. It belongs to the cleaning woman. Where is
she?”
Far, mocking laughter.
“She’s a day employee, ma’am. She comes in
from outside.”
“Where does she live?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t think
anybody does. Nobody ever asked. It never mattered.”
One of the other staffers offered, “She was a good
worker.”
Soulcatcher continued to examine the Ghanghesha.
“Something’s odd here . . . Now it does matter. To me.
Find out.”
“How?”
“I don’t care! Be creative! But do it.”
Soulcatcher hurled the clay figurine to the floor. Shards flew in
every direction.
A wisp of a ghost of darkness curled up and stood like a rampant
cobra a foot high for an instant. Then it struck. At the
Protector.
The staffers squealed and began trampling one another, trying to
get away. They had not seen a shadow before but they knew what a
shadow could do.
The laughter was closer now, louder and lasting longer.
Soulcatcher offered a convincing squeal of surprise and fright,
like a young woman who has just stepped on a snake. Her apparel and
the handful of generalized protective spells that always surrounded
her saved her from becoming a victim of her own crudest weapon.
Even so, for a minute she was like a child swatting mosquitoes
as the shadow enthusiastically strove to terminate their
relationship. Failing to reclaim control of the shadow, Soulcatcher
destroyed it. The necessity told her that a pretty clever mind had
prepared it, probably hoping that she would be too angry to pay
close attention for just that instant
needed . . .
“Woman! Come back here!” The Protector extended a
hand in the direction Narita had fled. Somehow, a single strand of
the woman’s hair had become entwined through
Soulcatcher’s fingers. Those fingers shimmered
momentarily. The air became charged. The other staffers whimpered
and wished they had even had the nerve to try to run.
Narita reappeared slowly, taking short zombie steps.
“Here!” Soulcatcher said. She pointed at a spot on the
Anger Chamber floor. “The rest of you. Go away.
Quickly.” She did not have to add any encouragement.
“Fat woman. Tell me everything about the creature who always
carried the Ghanghesha.”
“I’ve told you everything I know,” Narita
whined.
“No. You have not. Start talking. She may have kidnapped
the Radisha.”
Soulcatcher regretted mentioning that the instant the words left
her helmet.
The laughter sounded like it was coming from just out in the
hallway, a diabolic snickering. The Protector’s head twitched
toward that direction. She sensed no threat. It could wait a
minute.
“Her name is Minh Subredil.” It took Narita only
another thirty seconds to relate everything she knew about Minh
Subredil, her daughter Shikhandini and her sister-in-law Sawa.
“Thank you,” Soulcatcher snarled.
“You’ve been most unhelpful. And for that, I shall
provide an appropriate reward.” She gripped the fat
woman’s throat in her right hand, squeezed.
As Narita went limp, that laughter sounded once more. There
might have been a word there, too. Ardath? Or perhaps Silath? Or
might it have been . . . ? No matter.
Soulcatcher would not listen to that, just to the mockery. She
hurled herself toward the sound but when she burst into the
hallway, there was nothing to see.
She started to call for Guards, for Greys, but recalled that she
had just slain the one person other than herself who knew for sure
that the Radisha had disappeared.
The Radisha had shut herself away from the world. That was all
anybody really needed to know. The Princess could live forever
right there in her Anger Chamber. She did not need to venture forth
ever again. She had her good friend the Protector to handle the
boring chores of managing her empire for her.
More laughter, apparently from nowhere and everywhere.
Soulcatcher stamped away. This was not over yet.
A white crow dropped out of the murk near the ceiling of the
hallway, flapped heavily, landed beside the fat woman. It held its
beak poised beneath her nostrils momentarily, as though checking
for breath. Then it flapped away suddenly, sharp ears having caught
the sound of a stealthy footfall.
A shivering Jaul Barundandi eased into the chamber. He knelt
beside the woman. He took her hand. He remained there, tears
streaking his cheeks, until he heard the Protector returning,
arguing with herself in a variety of voices.